Japanese Anime Magazines Celebrate the Return of the Gintama Anime

With the recent announcement of a new anime adaptation of Hideaki Sorachi’s Gintama manga airing this April, the many fans and outlets have been gearing up for the return of the popular series. Various anime magazines in Japan have started to celebrate the upcoming anime, by featuring Gintoki and the gang on their covers.

The first featured cover about the anime’s announcement was in last month’s of Weekly Shonen Jump, which publishes the manga. And of course true to his style Gintoki remarks about there being another anime.

The February issue of Tokuma Shoten’s Animage magazine also featured the series on their cover, alongside a 19 page article about the new series.

And finally, the February issue of Animedia also featured Gintoki eating a rather large ice cream and stating that the magazine loves Gintama. Well, who doesn’t?

Gintama (Gin Tama) is an action comedy manga written and illustrated by Hideaki Sorachi. The series began in 2003 in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine where to date a total of 56 compiled volumes have been released. Since its release the manga has received high sales and praise for its writing and parodies other other popular manga and anime series. As of June last year a total of 44 million volumes have been sold. The series received many light novel and anime adaptations and spin-off. The first anime adaptation was an OVA produced by Sunrise (Love Live! School Idol Project, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch) in 2005 and was then adapted into a full series the following year, mostly directed by Yoichi Fujita (Binbougami ga!). A sequel series began in 2011 and ended last year for a total of 64 episodes. There has also been two films based on the series. A new anime of the series was announced at Jump Festa 2015.

Here is a synopsis of the series from MAL:

Life isn’t easy in feudal Japan… especially since the aliens landed and conquered everything! Oh sure, the new health care is great, but the public ban on the use of swords has left a lot of defeated samurai with a difficult decision to make concerning their future career paths! This is especially true if, as in the case of Gintoki Sakata, they’re not particularly inclined towards holding a day job, which is why Gintoki’s opted for the freelance route, taking any job that’s offered to him as long as the financial remuneration sounds right. Unfortunately, in a brave new world filled with stray bug-eyed monsters, upwardly mobile Yakuza and overly ambitious E.T. entrepreneurs, those jobs usually don’t pay as well as they should for the pain, suffering and indignities endured!

It is good to have the show back. The new Gintama anime will be airing in April during the Spring 2015 anime season. More information about the series will be revealed soon.